April 24, 2012

Today, a Cincinnati Council committee voted 5-1 to repeal the city's breed ban making pit bulls illegal in the city.

The city is considering changing the law after HB 14 was inacted to repeal the state wide breed-specific legislation. Councilman Chris Seelbach, who was elected in December 2011, proposed the ordinance change says he has never supported the city's breed ban. "I've always believed that entire breeds should not be punished -- we need to punish bad owners." The ordinance is supported by Vice Mayor Roxanne Qualls who notes that vicious dogs are not breed-specific.

Councilman Cecil Thomas was the lone dissenting vote. He said he was concerned about enforcement issues surrounding a breed neutral ordinance (more similar to the state law) vs the city's current breed ban.

The motion will now go before the entire council for adoption this week - -making Cincinnati primed to join Cleveland and Toledo as major metropolitan cities in Ohio that repealed their breed specific laws and the state of Ohio itself, which no longer has a breed-specific law.

Great job by Councilman Seelbach and Vice Mayor Qualls (and others) who have supported this repeal - and to the many in the Cincinnati area who have worked hard to make this happen. Awesome job folks.

March 27, 2009

It's tough to not laugh at Cincinnati at this point. It's almost as if they're rats in the maze that keep pushing the same buzzer over and over hoping this is the time it doesn't shock them. I don't know how else to explain it.

For starters, Cincinnati is under Ohio's state law sets restrictions on 'pit bulls' (insurance requirements, containment and leash requirement). In 2003, they decided that law wasn't working, so the city decided to institute an all-out ban on 'pit bulls'. That too proved to be a failure.

And we're going to put people in jail because they own a certain type of dog, that may or may not be dangerous, that may or may not even be a pit bull. Are we going to take Paulette Evans' dog, kill it and throw her in jail too?

That's not how I'd prefer to use the jail space in Cincinnati if I lived there.

It is sort of entertaining to watch the city council in Cincinnati try to make their breed specific laws work. They're now on version 4.0 of this ordinance because they can't get it to work. Maybe, at some point they're realize the law isn't not working because it isn't harsh enough -- maybe eventually they'll figure out it isn't working because it is an unenforceable law based on a failed premise.

You can't tell a vicious dog by its shape.And even if certain breeds were more aggressive, the ability to tell different breeds apart, particularly with mixed breeds, is virtually impossible and will lead to lawsuits. Dangerous dogs are not a problem -- but a symptom of a much larger societal problem that remains a problem within Cincinnati. It isn't the problem itself.

And tweaking a failed law with a failed premise isn't going to fix it.